Mangrove: A Distant Dream of Tomorrow (2010)

Swedish band MANGROVE was formed back in 2006, and made their debut on Transubstans Records three years later with the full length effort "Endless Skies". Just one year later they release their sophomore effort "A Distant Dream of Tomorrow", again opting for Transubstans as their label of choice.

70's style hard rock with a few bells and whistles is something of a speciality for Transubstans Records, with hard rock and progressive rock as the main genres they cover. Mangrove is a band with the main basis in the former, but do touch upon the latter at times, at least on this most recent effort.

Initially this CD comes across as by and large a Black Sabbath inspired creation. Doom-laden riffs with appropriate bass guitar supporting and melodic, powerful lead vocals on top kicks off this production, with just a tiny touch of psychedelic touches added in. But already on the second track some nice additional elements brought in courtesy of wind synths and carefully resonating clean and light-toned guitar licks heralds that Mangrove opts to be something more than mere purveyors of vintage doom metal.

And as the album unfolds we're basically treated to a band that merrily combines Iommi-inspired doom riffs with the gentler parts of Led Zeppelin's psychedelic inspired moments, often with both aspects combined within a single composition, arguably best exemplified on Walk Over the Oceans. But there are also examples of purebred lighter tinged Zeppelin inspired ventures, as splendidly explored on I've Been Seen Upon the Sun. There's also a treat in store for ardent fans of purebred psychedelic music in the shape of Chant of the Seas, a marvellous instrumental affair with reverberating, dreamladen haze-filled guitar textures that most likely will be enjoyed by those who enjoy certain mildly intoxicating illegal pleasures.

A couple of lacklustre tracks aside this is a good production for most anyone with a soft spot for 70's hard rock. If Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are favourites of yours you will like this CD, how much depends on your taste for psychedelic touches and music that fearlessly treads in the footsteps of others.

My rating: 78/100

Akarusa Yami: Third Eye, Wide Open (2011)

A new metal band are emerging from the UK in the shape of Akarusa Yami. I don't know too much about them, but as I was sent a taster from their forthcoming debut album “Ouroborous” today I gave the song a listen or five, and was suitably impressed.
What a band stands for is hard to tell based on one track, but if the aggressive, pounding staccato thrash exemplified in Third Eye, Wide Open is a good example of their musical exploits metal fans have something to look forward to indeed.
Nuclear Assault, Killing Joke and Fear Factory were names that quickly arose in my mind, with the occasional quirkiness of the former two and the aggression of the latter as the main pointers to my associations. Others more up to date on the metal scene than I am will probably find better references.

This is a fine piece of dark, aggressive metal, and the band wants anyone curious to examine it themselves. Right now it's streaming right here, and on April 4th it will also be freely and legally downloadable from the same place for anyone just dying to shove it in to their collection of iPod tunes. Personally I think and hope many will, as this is a band that appears to be worthwhile keeping track of.

Kruk to release new album (Press release)

The 6th of June will witness the release of the new album by KRUK, a Polish Hard Rock band, formed in 2001 by Piotr Brzychcy and Krzysztof Walczyk.

Their second studio album will feature a big surprise! The song "In Reverie", which will promote the album, will include a guest appearance by Doogie White! This charismatic singer is best known to the wide audience for his cooperation with such bands as Midnight Blue, Rainbow, Cornerstore, Yngwie Malmsteen, Rata Blanca and most recently Tank. This anticipated album will surely constitute an obligatory title for all fans of classic rock.

Kruk's musicians openly express their joy! They couldn't have hoped for a better present than Ritchie Blackmore's former singer's participation in their musical enterprise! As it turns out, Piotrek Brzychcy, Tomek Wiśniewski and Krzysztof Walczyk met White already in 2005 during their gig in Katowice, where they shared the stage with Yngwie Malmsteen. "We were extremely happy that, after the gig, we could give each other high five, that we could make some commemorative photos. Now he sings in our song, he sings our lyrics... on our album. It's hard to believe!" Piotrek says, adding "I remember one of my first conversations with Krzysiek Walczyk, when we expressed our utmost delight over Rainbow's 'Strangers in Us All'. It was back when we were just starting to form Kruk and we had never dreamed that we would ever have the honor of cooperating with Doogie White. We adored White for having set new standards in the Purple-Rainbow family with the way he sang with Blackmore. What he recorded for "In Reverie" is to our utmost satisfaction because you can hear passion and joy in every single note. I don't think there's a more happy band today in the entire universe than us!"

At the moment, Kruk are finishing their work on the new album. It will be released by Metal Mind Productions on 6th June.

Travellers: Magic (Press release)

Travellers - that is the name of the new musical project of Wojtek Szadkowski, known for his past involvement with such acclaimed bands as Collage, Satellite, and Strawberry Fields.

As an artist, Szadkowski is strongly associated with the prog rock scene. That is why Travellers is going to be quite a surprise for all his fans, as it doesn't really have that much in common with that particular genre. And what can we expect of this new project? As Wojtek explains: "It's a mixture of prog, ethnic music, the 80's music, a lot of magic and space, and all of this crowned by Robin's fantastic voice..." And how fantastic that voice is, the fans could already hear on Strawberry Fields' album, which was a debut for Robin.

The band (in the line-up: Robin – vocals, Grzegorz "sencha atta" Leczkowski – guitars, Krzysiek Palczewski – bass lines, Wojtek Szadkowski – keys) are currently working on their debut album "Magic".

Wojtek Szadkowski describes the origins of Travellers: "I got the idea about forming Travellers by accident. I was checking various ideas which had been recorded throughout the several previous months and it turned out that some of them formed a certain consistent whole. They shared a certain specific mood, a bit ephemeral, a bit ethnic. I gathered them in a separate place and started adding in some ethnic loops. I remembered that, in the first version of one of Strawberry Fields songs, Robin sang in a very high-pitched voice. Her voice was a little bit reminiscent of Enya then... so I thought that it would be a perfect voice for this kind of project. But I had no idea who could play the guitar. I knew that it had to be someone that could feel the vibe of the 80's and of rock classics. I didn't want it to be a typical, obvious, progressive guitar in the vein of Steve Hackett's style - that would destroy all the mood. Incidentally, I met a friend of mine in the street, whom I hadn't seen for many, many years. I knew Grzesiek from the times of record boot sales. I knew he played something or other, I knew he had some sort of a band. But we hadn't seen each other for some 10-15 years! I told him about Travellers and he wanted to try. He sent me guitar tracks for the song "Dreaming". When I heard them, I had no doubt that no one else would fit that mood better than he did. He played perfectly. He chose a perfect sound, he added a new quality to the song and that was exactly what I wanted. We worked on the guitar tracks via the Internet - he would send me his tracks and I would say what was OK and what was to be corrected. Sometimes I would suggest some other solutions but these were merely cosmetic changes. I approved most of the guitar tracks without any changes whatsoever. Sometimes I would modify a song, the order of particular parts, the beginning after I'd heard the guitars - to make things work better. It was different with the bass tracks. I'm no good at playing the bass but, accidentally, Krzysiek, after hearing the songs, offered that he would play the bass lines on the synthesizer. In this way, the last jigsaw piece fell into place all by itself. Initially, because of my laziness, I wanted Robin to write the lyrics but eventually it was decided that I would do it."

The album is currently in the final recording stage. We will have to wait for the effects of the band's work till May, when the album "Magic" will be released.

NeraNature: Foresting Wounds (Press release)

"Foresting Wounds", the new solo album by Nera (the female voice of Darzamat) will be released by Metal Mind Productions on the 8th of May.

The idea to form NeraNature was conceived in the beginning of 2009. The singer was searching for a way to communicate, via the medium of music, her thoughts regarding the eternal bond of man and nature, as also her personal impressions regarding her observations of various interpersonal relations and the emotions that accompany them. "I've been searching for the proper time and place for the kind of music and lyrics that would be a medium for my thoughts and beliefs for a long time. The time has come," Nera explains.

The name of the project - NeraNature - doesn't reflect only the artist's preoccupation with the question of the man-nature relation. It can also be interpreted as the nature of Nera, as a representative of women in search of meaning, ever learning from themselves and ever surprised by what lies in the deep of their own selves. It is this feminine tone of Nera's lyrics that constitutes one of the most significant elements of her songs. The lyrics involve the subject of difficult interpersonal relations but also the question of men getting dissociated from themselves and from nature. The beliefs described by Nera in her lyrics aren't only a pose, as she's been a vegetarian and a defender of animal rights for 15 years now.

Nera denies that the formation of her own band marks the end of her cooperation with Darzamat. In fact, the band is soon to play a number of concerts in South America and India. "There's a couple of exotic tours ahead of us but except for the live shows we're not planning any recordings for this year, though I hope we'll still record many new albums with Darzamat. Also, I have many plans regarding NeraNature and the other musicians from Darzamat work on their own side projects as well so it's hard to say right now when that will happen," she adds.

The album "Foresting Wounds" will consist of 12 atmospheric rock/metal compositions. It was recorded together with the producer Jaroslaw Toifel. 4 demo tracks can be found on the project's official site on MySpace.

Lonely Kamel: Blues for the Dead (2010)

Norwegian quartet LONELY KAMEL was formed back in 2005 if my sources are correct, and seek to blend the members love and appreciation for 70's hard rock, blues, psychedelic rock and doom metal. So far this has resulted in two full length efforts. "Blues for the Dead" is the most recent of these, and was released by Swedish label Transubstans Records in October 2010.

Musically we're dealing with a band exploring a territory not too many have ventured into prior to them. I could imagine that Robin Trower might have come up with similar material back in his heyday. If heavily on acid that is. And while covering Black Sabbath. The references to the latter are numerous, the bass guitar arguably the most constant and consistent of these. Along with the steady drums this crafts a heavy hitting, solid foundation for the proceedings, be it melodic, slow blues passages with fragile guitar notes harmonically resonating in the archetypical melancholy manner of that genre or the opposite part of this band's stylistic expression: Massive, dark, twisted and distorted riffs in the shape of drawn out notes resonating dark and twisted or surging patterns of the kind doom metal bands typically enjoy to torture out of their instruments.

Most times Lonely Kamel explores the middle ground between the extremes of blues and metal though, the guitar typically taking on a defined hard rock rather than metal type delivery and frequently utilized to provide the final ingredient to this mix, namely psychedelic textures. These guys know their heavy psychedelic rock quite nicely thank you, and sneak it in as subtle details or dominating traits. And while not always hitting the mark head on the material is astounding when they manage to get the perfect blend, and in the case of "Blues for the Dead" I'd pull out Stick With Your Plan as a good example of that. I really hope they do too, and that the song in question has a central place in it. Their plan that is.

While placing this band quite nicely into one of the numerous genre boxes many music nerds invent by the truckload is a hard ting to do, I guess stoner rock is the closest match. Arguably. Personally I try to avoid such categorization myself if possible. In this case I'd think that those who enjoy early 70's Black Sabbath, Robin Trower's first solo efforts and in addition find 70's psychedelic rock to be an interesting genre in general should have a field day with this production. And as they are an active live unit, they'll probably be just as enjoyable in that setting as on your home stereo, if not even more so.

Crystal Caravan: Against the Rising Tide (2010)

From their formation back in 2002 Swedish ensemble CRYSTAL CARAVAN have made a good job of perfecting their take on the good old fashioned in your face and at your throat, good old fashioned rock and roll style of music, and when they eventually issued their self-titled debut album in 2009 it made quite an impression.

Follow up effort "Against the Rising Tide" was ready towards the end of October 2010, and doesn't quite manage to reach the same heights as it's predecessors. We're still very much talking about late 60's and early 70's hard rock, with Steppenwolf, The Who and The Doors as likely influences, with something of an emphasis on the first to this time around. Powerful lead vocals John Kay style, staccato dramatic guitar and organ surges and a few nice details topping it all off in the shape of dampened 70's funky guitar licks and sophisticated percussion adding something of a fusion flavour to the proceedings. While most of the tracks are high energy performances through and through the band also find the time to explore slightly more fragile territories in the shape of Apple Hotel, while Focus and to some extent final effort Wrecking Ball feature a darker and slightly more laidback expression that should please fans of Jim Morrison & Co quite nicely. The latter ending on a rather different note however, as the band shift toward a Uriah Heep sounding galloping hard rock escapade in the final two or so minutes of that creation. Perhaps heralding a new stylistic twist to be explored further at a later time? Time will have to tell.

Crystal Caravan comes across as fine purveyors of classic hard rock from the time when this phrase first was coined, and is a band well worth seeking out by those who enjoy acts such as Steppenwolf, The Who and The Doors. In particular by those who have a soft spot for richly arranged varieties of that sound, as we're dealing with a band consisting of seven musicians who all contribute towards the creation of a rich and detailed sound.

My rating: 75/100

Track list:
1. We'll Always Lose
2. Love and Direction
3. Apple Hotel
4. I'm a Stone
5. Focus
6. Blue Blues
7. Take What's Yours
8. Wrecking Ball